"While the last several months have been challenging for us, Zynga remains well positioned to capitalize on the growth of social gaming," Mark Pincus, Zynga’s CEO and founder, said in a statement.

"We're implementing a number of steps to drive long-term growth and profitability. The successful launches of FarmVille2 and ChefVille in the third quarter demonstrate that when we develop great games, our large player audience engages. It's more clear than ever that along with search, shop, and share, play is a fundamental pillar of the Internet, and Zynga continues to be the leader."

Gamasutra seems to be implying that Zynga is going to shift its focus to online gambling games that reward real money. I would imagine there are severe legal ramifications for a move like that, though.

Zynga reminds me of Ralph Kramden's short-sighted get-rich-quick business ideas, except they stumbled upon a one-time windfall. We're now in the second half of the episode where Ralph loses it all and has to apologize to Alice for being such an idiot.

"We're implementing a number of steps to drive long-term growth and profitability. The successful launches of FarmVille 2 and ChefVille in the third quarter demonstrate that when we develop great games, our large player audience engages. It's more clear than ever that along with search, shop, and share, play is a fundamental pillar of the Internet, and Zynga continues to be the leader."

And when those burn out, they'll launch their revolutionary titles, "FarmVille 3" and "ChefVille 2" to reengage the casual "gaming" audience and leverage their substantial mindshare to provide an enhanced value add to shareholders! Or something.

Games involve the ability to lose. The original few Sim City games are a great example - it takes a while to learn the rules, and you can fail miserably in a wide variety of ways. Can you "lose" at FarmVille?

What were these idiots expecting? Charging $20 for an item is what is killing them. When they were at the top of their game the charged what? $1, $2 for items/advancements and people were busy wasting a buck or two and it didn't mattered.

They got greedy and relied too much on the "whales" who eventually grew a tolerance to their FarmVille OCD drug.

What were these idiots expecting? Charging $20 for an item is what is killing them. When they were at the top of their game the charged what? $1, $2 for items/advancements and people were busy wasting a buck or two and it didn't mattered.

They got greedy and relied too much on the "whales" who eventually grew a tolerance to their FarmVille OCD drug.

No that isn't the problem, the problem is the 513,801 million they spent on "Research and development".

Now I'm no expert on their company, but what the hell could they possibly have spent half a billion on in 9 months that can be classed as RnD?

I mean I could understand Intel loosing money after spending 500 million on a new chip design (actually I think its more in the range of 5 billion?), but an online game company?

I'd be interested to see what a company like Symantec spends on RnD, surely paying thousands to study viruses would cost a lot, but an online gaming company??

Games involve the ability to lose. The original few Sim City games are a great example - it takes a while to learn the rules, and you can fail miserably in a wide variety of ways. Can you "lose" at FarmVille?

I find it very ironic that you hold up Sim City as a great example of ‘game’. Sim City is widely viewed by game designers as far more a sandbox, a toy, than a game. Except for the roughly tacked on window dressing tidbits of scenarios, which are only a faction of the experience (really a training tool), there isn’t really losing in Sim City so much as not reaching the goals that you set. Likewise in FarmVille, the pass/fail goal is left up to the user to decide. If you somehow consider Sim City a game there is absolutely no reason not to consider Farmville a game.

But even if you classify Farmville as a toy, which I’m inclined to do, I still am dismayed at all the geek rage about it “not being a game” as though somehow a toy is morally less than a game.

What were these idiots expecting? Charging $20 for an item is what is killing them. When they were at the top of their game the charged what? $1, $2 for items/advancements and people were busy wasting a buck or two and it didn't mattered.

They got greedy and relied too much on the "whales" who eventually grew a tolerance to their FarmVille OCD drug.

No that isn't the problem, the problem is the 513,801 million they spent on "Research and development".

Now I'm no expert on their company, but what the hell could they possibly have spent half a billion on in 9 months that can be classed as RnD?

I mean I could understand Intel loosing money after spending 500 million on a new chip design (actually I think its more in the range of 5 billion?), but an online game company?

I'd be interested to see what a company like Symantec spends on RnD, surely paying thousands to study viruses would cost a lot, but an online gaming company??

Boggles my mind..

When your bottom line is based more on creating sinister Skinner boxes that rely more on creating addiction than on providing a fun an entertaining experience I can understand why you'd put a lot of money into trying to build more pychologically compelling and addicting versions of the same thing. It's like cigarette companies investing in making their product more addictive.

Or maybe I'm overestimating the intelligence of their strategies. For all I know their research department made a yacht of gold, platinum, and diamonds that immediately sank when launched.

Couldn't care less whether Zynga succeeds or fails, but I will say that I like most of what they have done with DrawSomething. OMGPOP may have done these things eventually (because they make sense) but the ability to send a comment about a drawing, save your drawing (but not someone else's yet), and the recent introduction of "badges" (achievements) are all welcome to me. And an expanded word list.

I'm a non-paying player, and I doubt they'll ever convert me, but I appreciate that they didn't botch it, and that they didn't just steal the idea and create their own clone.

zynga has always struck me as overvalued and unoriginal -- a business model of re-purposing already existing game concepts for facebook and mobile. this only works in the beginning of the game... now that the app marketplace is maturing a bit, they're going to have a lot of trouble competing if they stick to the same strategy. their scrabble app will just be one of two-dozen, and games with clever, shiny new concepts will get all the "buzz."

zynga has always struck me as overvalued and unoriginal -- a business model of re-purposing already existing game concepts for facebook and mobile. this only works in the beginning of the game... now that the app marketplace is maturing a bit, they're going to have a lot of trouble competing if they stick to the same strategy. their scrabble app will just be one of two-dozen, and games with clever, shiny new concepts will get all the "buzz."

Pyramid schemes, which lure in users with social pressure then compel them to lure in other users in turn and spend money on *buffs* or increased perceived standing, operate on the same principle. Granted, while other games have developed a monetized ecosystem of buying/selling products of virtual value, at least those systems offer a method of profitability for consumers who can exploit the "market" available for people who want instant gratification in the form of shinier weapons (i.e. DPS) and at least have a game that provides them with value for their initial investment. Wasted productivity aside, D3 & WoW offers a more "socially redeeming" and "equitable" system of exchange than Mafia Wars or Farmville.

Games involve the ability to lose. The original few Sim City games are a great example - it takes a while to learn the rules, and you can fail miserably in a wide variety of ways. Can you "lose" at FarmVille?

I find it very ironic that you hold up Sim City as a great example of ‘game’. Sim City is widely viewed by game designers as far more a sandbox, a toy, than a game. Except for the roughly tacked on window dressing tidbits of scenarios, which are only a faction of the experience (really a training tool), there isn’t really losing in Sim City so much as not reaching the goals that you set. Likewise in FarmVille, the pass/fail goal is left up to the user to decide. If you somehow consider Sim City a game there is absolutely no reason not to consider Farmville a game.

But even if you classify Farmville as a toy, which I’m inclined to do, I still am dismayed at all the geek rage about it “not being a game” as though somehow a toy is morally less than a game.

EDIT: Or a bad thing to do with software.

I'd say it isn't so much that Farmville is a "toy" (toys can be games, or used in games at least), it's that Farmville isn't even a toy. It's more like a slot machine without even the potential of a real gain: put money in, pull the lever, get a rush of chemicals in your addiction center in return. That's all. Now, you can argue that all games are fundamentally that, but the difference is most games have the failing component that Syonyk mentioned, the fact they are a challenge, and not merely a "pay money or time to win" addiction. That's why Farmville isn't a game, while Sim City very much is: Sim City is a challenge (even if a nearly completely sandbox one), while Farmville really isn't, it's just a money-farming (for Zynga) machine.

And yes you can lose at Sim City, quite easily. Over-spending, pollution, crime, disasters, etc. Tons of things can ruin your city with no prospect of ever making it back out again. It wasn't terribly common for that to happen, but it could. From what I remember, 3 was particularly bad in that regard (never could get a stable population started in that one, they always left for no reason I could find, not that I played a whole lot of that version).

Well, maybe all their employees jumping ship after the IPO lockout expires might have something to do with this. They were all in it for the short-term anyway, hoping their options would hit big. There's no other reason anyone in their right mind would work for Pincus.

When your bottom line is based more on creating sinister Skinner boxes that rely more on creating addiction than on providing a fun an entertaining experience I can understand why you'd put a lot of money into trying to build more pychologically compelling and addicting versions of the same thing. It's like cigarette companies investing in making their product more addictive.

Or maybe I'm overestimating the intelligence of their strategies. For all I know their research department made a yacht of gold, platinum, and diamonds that immediately sank when launched.

Indeed that is perhaps true, but much of that is already completely figured out and boiled down to an art. Unless they managed to not hire anyone that can use Google, or anyone that knows how to do playtesting (aka clinical trials), then perhaps the only explanation is a yacht.. Then again I can easily look at a game like Borderlands 2, which while great in many aspects, has the same stupid frustrations of the original. Why oh why isn't there a "buy-all-ammo" button?

Still, what they've managed to produce vs their expenses is one of the worst if not I've ever come across. People have already mentioned other games like WoW, Eve, LoL, SL and so on as having orders of magnitude less spent on them (perhaps except WoW, but they are the exception), so I guess maybe this is just the other end of the bell curve..